What beauty is to me.

As I walked through the halls wearing my pink and black zebra bandana over my eyes, I honestly can’t remember a time where I felt more scared in my life. The fact that I couldn’t see anything and that someone was having to guide me was petrifying. You never appreciate things that come naturally to you like vision and hearing until you have found yourself without them.

When our teacher told us that we were going to be blind for a day, I was more than excited. All the other humanities classes had already done this assignment and seeing what they had to go through made me want to do it even more. Even though the assignment ended up being not just physically but mentally tough, there is no other way I would have wanted to experience it. What I went through that day is not something that you can just tell someone about and expect them to understand. It is something you have to experience and appreciate for yourself.

Although you know that there are mean people at your school, you never really notice them until you are the one being bullied. That was exactly the case I was in. Even though I had a friend with me at all times to guide me through the hallways, there is no way that you can prevent someone from bullying you. As the day dragged on, this concept became even more clear. On numerous occasions I was tripped on purpose, pushed into stationary objects and worst of all, pushed down the stairs. Luckily I had someone there to save me in all of my dilemmas, which got me to thinking: how do blind people put up with this treatment everyday? Although most of the reason people where bullying me was because I’m not actually blind and they knew that by the next day I would be normal, I couldn’t imagine living with that bump in the road all my life.

Even though I loved this assignment because of the obstacles it put me through and because of what I learned, I can honestly say that doing it again is not at the top of my priorities list. It was a life changing experience and something that I will look back on and think of forever. I really think that this assignment made me actually step back from the hectic life I live in and realize that I have so much to be thankful for, even if it’s for something as simple as seeing. Because somewhere out there, a little girl might not ever be able to read her favorite storybook or a little boy may not ever learn how to write cursive. So along with a learning experience, I can say that I walked away with something so much greater.

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This week’s essay

Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, lawyer Djenita Pasic enjoyed the peace of her religiously diverse country. But after the fall of communism and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Pasic was forced to reevaluate her ideas about religion and tolerance. Click here to read her essay.